


Ladywolf and Hawkprince

by Wafflesrock



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Ladyhawke is a wonderful movie, Shakarian Forever, Told in Snippets, started as a warmup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-19 01:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 4,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14864111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wafflesrock/pseuds/Wafflesrock
Summary: Told in vignette style, this fic is based off the 1985 film "Ladyhawke." Cursed by the vile Illusive Man, Garrus is a turian prince by night and a gorgeous hawk by day, while Lady Shepard is doomed to roam the woods as a wolf by night while she is a beautiful woman when the sun is out. A tale of love, revenge and camaraderie.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [savbakk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/savbakk/gifts).



The passage is damp and narrow, ancient stone hugging her as she slides. But the air smells different the further she descends, and liberation is finally within reach; she’s birthed into cold, slick water, cloudy and corrupt, but freedom all the same. Kasumi wipes her face and turns her head, unsure where to go. The sewage system is a labyrinth of wet rock and waste, though still far preferable to the hangman’s’ noose. 

The murky waters of the subterranean river pull at her cloths and numb her limbs as she wades on through the dark. A floating object gives her pause and she scrambles for a filthy ledge, blunt nails digging into ooze. “God,” she mumbles terror shaking her voice, “if you let me live, and if that thing is not what I think, I swear I’ll never steal again.” As her clandestine promise is made, a branch with trash and malicious rats passes her on the tide.

She breathes out deep and looking forward sees a shaft of light. She rushes toward it and sees a ladder made of pipe; salvation is at hand. But cruel fate spits in her dirt slicked face as the iron grate holds fast. The words of God and of his servants float above her in the air; the living world within reach and yet, out of her grasp. She slips and falls back into the tepid river Stix; she must swim beneath the hazy waters searching for escape, as none will come from on high.

She’s found the end of her flight, but the way is sealed: crosses of iron block her path. Through a breach, she squeezes out and as her head breaks the surface of the living world, clean air filling her lungs, Kasumi thanks the Lord once more before cutting an unsuspecting guard’s purse. The Almighty will forgive her, she decides. She’s his daughter and He knows her well.  


	2. Chapter 2

The entertainment languidly move their bodies, dancing to the crisp sounds of instruments finely tuned and deftly played. The garden is in full bloom; its hues and abundance rivaling those of Eden. All the while, the sun envelops them in its warm embrace. At least, he assumes the light is warm.

The Illusive man tucks his hands inside his ivory robes. Cold is forever gnawing at him. Like a wolf with a femur, the frigid jaws of sin chomp and rend at his flesh, the damage unseen but surely felt. He watches the dancers with hollow eyes of ice. They bring him no true pleasure.

A shadow and movement within the sunlit sanctuary draws his attention. Captain Kai Leng is as out of place in this bright and heavenly space as death is at a wedding dance, and despite the smear of pitch he makes as he strides across the verdant lawn, he seems at home in the central garden, and that fact rankles the Illusive Man all the more.

“My Grace, a prisoner has escaped,” his dog says with lowered eyes. Rage seethes within the blackened pit where the Illusive Man’s heart once beat. He dismisses the musicians and dancers so that he may lay his true feeling bare without witness.

“Find her and bring her back!” He demands in a voice hovering between human and a growl. His dimwitted dog makes excuses, not wanting to actually earn his keep. The feeble-mindedness of his inferiors knows no bounds it seems. And when he finally sends the jackal on his way to capture the wayward thief, he can only gaze at the cold hot earth and wonder of the others who he’s damned.


	3. Chapter 3

She keeps a low profile. Like a cat eternally on the hunt. But Kasumi is too giddy to keep quiet. She’s just done the impossible and the news froths at her mouth, churns in her belly, begging her to spill it from her lips. And so, she does, to any willing ear at this outdoor tavern.

She proclaims herself the world’s greatest thief and the only person to escape the dungeons of Aquila. Expecting skepticism or perhaps even applause, she is unprepared when a tavern-goer lowers his hood to reveal his face; Captain Kai Leng. The Illusive’s Man’s favorite attack dog.

There is a flurry of motion as she dodges and dives under tables and around hapless patrons. The Captain and his men have her outnumbered, and there’s nowhere to hide. She flees to the raised trellises, only for a storm of swords to slash at her. Death is inevitable. She is grabbed and hauled against a beam as Kai Leng makes to cleave her head from her shoulders as though she were a mere beast for fodder.

The loud neigh of a horse and cry of a hawk halts her execution. The beautiful lady knight with hair like fire, and armor blacker than the ether of night, dismounts her steed and broadsword drawn, demands Kasumi’s release. She hears another man refer to the newcomer as “Lady Shepard,” and then Kasumi is running as blood flies and men scream and the air grows heavy with battle.

She runs for the woods and assured safety, for the sanctuary of the trees, only to hear the growing drum of hoof-beats. She spares a glance over her shoulder and sees the lady racing toward her, a large hawk soaring alongside.

Kasumi darts to the left, but the lady is faster; an angel of speed and fury that scoops the other woman onto her horse and gallops away from the shouts and curses of the men she’s left bloodied and tattered in her wake.


	4. Chapter 4

The sun is setting behind the skeletal trees, and Kasumi bides her time. What Lady Shepard asks is suicide; break back into Aquila? Kasumi may not have much in this world, but she values her own life at least.

A long, low howl breaks her from her musings. Kasumi rushes back to the safety of the splintered barn, reckless in her haste. She does not hear the fall of malign feet upon the sodden earth, does not see the weathered farmer lift his battered axe. There’s a roar and a fury as a wolf with sanguine fur lunges at the ghoul and tears his throat out with teeth that shine like polished daggers.

Kasumi flees the righteous murder and runs to warn the Lady. Normandy still stands tethered to a beam; his mistress, however, has vanished, an apparition in the night. In her place, tall and proud, stands a turian with plates that glimmer sliver in the embrace of the pale moon. Upon his head a coal-black sash, with a golden crown inlaid in thread, and on his back, the expansive cloak of pitch much favored by the Lady.

Kasumi has not seen many turians but knows royalty well enough. “My Lord,” she says, fear vanquishing her awe. “There’s a wolf outside.”

He turns to her with eyes of unblemished sapphire, and in a voice as blue as his gaze, he simply says “I know,” as he walks out into the growing shadows, a three fingered hand extended to the wolf.

She thinks she must be dreaming. When daylight wakes her with a sweet caress, she shimmies down the ladder to find Lady Shepard readying her steed. The Lady’s face is still more beautiful than any painting; the features of an angel sent to Earth. She’s robed in a fine dress of pale lilac; it clings to her strong lithe frame. And Kasumi is reminded of the beauty she saw the night before.

“I had a dream,” she tells the Lady. “It must have been a dream. I saw a turian prince so handsome, that he couldn’t exist in the waking world.”

The Lady pauses in her motions, a pleading sorrow in the verdant forests of her eyes. “Tell me about him,” she says softly. “This handsome prince you saw. Tell me so that maybe I can see him in my dreams, too.” And so she tells her lovely companion, of the turian prince in black and gold. The man who wore the riding cloak better than the Lady. The man with eyes like oceans, and paints more cobalt than his blood. The Lady sits and listens, and in her silence, Kasumi thinks she understands her sorrow.


	5. Chapter 5

He inhales the silken fabric, clings to the memory the smell brings him. The scent of lilac and sun and _her_. His Jane. He can only glimpse her in the waning rays of the dying day, and the faint glow of light upon her face does nothing to capture her radiance, her ethereal beauty.

When he first saw her at a gathering between their cities, he knew that he was lost. Her eyes were emeralds, her hair rubies, skin pearl. She was a treasure beyond any comparison. And her wit and brilliance with both words and blade had captured his heart entirely. Lady Shepard, the adopted daughter of Lord Anderson.

They’d kept their love a secret, least those who wanted her for their own try to part them. Stolen kisses in the gardens of Aquila, moonlit walks around Palaven tower. Whispered promises of forever, when they married in a small ceremony at a tiny village church.

He can still feel the velvet tresses of her hair through his hands, taste the sweet honey of her mouth against his, and hear her musical calls of his name on her lips. She smelled like lilacs then, too, as they lay spent and intertwined in the meadow near the church after their first time. Crushed flowers perfuming his plates and her skin. A heaven in the living world. A belonging he’d never known before.  

He keens softly in his subvocals as he tucks her wedding dress back inside his satchel. She wears it for him in the day. Fills it with her scent, so when the lonely night claims her, she is still with him; in memory at least.

One day, he’ll touch her again as he did before. With Kasumi’s aide, he’ll kill the Illusive Man, or else Shepard will, and they’ll be together again. No longer parted with the breaking of day or birth of night. 


	6. Chapter 6

Kasumi is at first grateful her destiny is once again her own. Lady Shepard must be mad behind that lovely face to think that she would ever return to Aquila! And yet…

She is consumed with thoughts as cluttered as a cobweb, and so she flutters unawares into the spider’s web. Kai Leng crows in victory and demands the whereabouts of the Lady. Kasumi tells the truth; she knows not where they are. And her true words blow back to bite her, like ice on merciless winds.

But then the Lady is there; sword drawn and eyes flashing vicious green. Steel cracks and arrows fly as men scream and horses shriek. The world is red, but the Lady is an avenging angel from on high. She single handedly turns the tide and triumph is at hand, when an arrow lances through the air, striking her hawk in the breast.

The Lady’s scream and frantic ministrations seem an overreaction for a bird. “Better to put it out of its misery,” Kasumi says, though not unkindly. The look of wrath consumed within green flame gives Kasumi pause. And suddenly the bird is swaddled in cloth and being thrust into her arms.

“You must go!” The Lady tells her, verdant fire still burning in her eyes. “You must take him to a monk named Mordin Solus.”

Kasumi asks why her as the Lady heaves her atop Normandy’s back. She gets a riddle rather than answer, but the pleading look in Lady Shepard’s eyes has her rushing at great speed, the bird beneath her arms, the four winds at her back, a ship in a sea of grass.

The mountain monastery looms, a rocky haven from the wilds. The monk is drunk with loquacious ramblings but ceases immediately at Lady Shepard’s name.

He takes the hawk so gently, as though it were a man, and curiosity eats at Kasumi like decay preys upon the flesh. She picks the lock to the sealed room where the hawk was taken, but on the cot of cedar and linen instead lies the turian prince. His plates gleam in the moonlight and his eyes are heavy with pain. “My Lady?” He asks, and Kasumi thinks she understands; the pieces knitting together like fine cloth to form a tapestry.

More questions will undoubtedly follow, but her answers are finally at hand.

 


	7. Chapter 7

“It is a dark curse,” Mordin tells her as the embers of their fire dance high in the blackened night. Kasumi leans forward on her knees, eyes alert and still unbelieving of the sight she has seen; a wounded hawk turning into a turian prince with silver plates and sapphire eyes.

Mordin stares into the leaping flames, black gaze roving back in time. He tells her of a noble lady who was swift with a sword and had a face so lovely the angels sang her praises. And a turian prince with a wicked shot and a voice like honeyed wine. 

The cruel and conniving Illusive Man had seen the lady, a human so brave and beautiful that death had been unable to keep her, and the tyrant wanted her for himself. He sent her letters with pretty words, roses on the vine. But the lady would have none of it and returned his corrupted poems of thorns unopened.

Her heart belonged to the turian prince with cobalt paints and gold latticed hood, the only sun in her sky. She married him in secret, but their union was revealed to the Illusive Man, who made a demonic deal with the Reapers of the abyssal plains beneath the blackened tide.

A curse befell the lovers; a lance of pitch striking prince Vakarian in the face as he attempted to shield his lady wife, only to meet with ruin. By day, the fair prince with eyes the color of the summer sky is cursed to soar the empty heavens, a magnificent hawk, forever alone, but not. By night, the beautiful lady is doomed to roam the forests and hillocks, a gorgeous wolf, crying to a cold dead moon, weeping for her turian love.

“So long as there is day and night,” Mordin says with sorrow in his tone, “the two shall never be together.” He looks to Kasumi and there suddenly sparks like a comets’ tail hope within his eyes. “But I’ve seen a way,” he tells her. “I’ve been shown how to bring them back.”


	8. Chapter 8

The Illusive Man’s dogs descend upon the monastery like locusts upon a field of wheat. They swarm over walls, surge through doors, crawl over bridges and rockery. Mordin has laid traps within his cloistered fortress, but still they come with biting steel and armored backs; a pestilence upon the land.

Kasumi leads the prince through shadowed halls and splintered doors, but with a cry they are seen and secrecy lost. Urging Lord Vakarian onward and up a spiraled tower, Kasumi is grasped by the leg, the hare in the jaws of a jackal with glinting metal teeth. She bends her leg and forsakes her boot, but once the trap door is sealed there is nowhere left to run.

The wounded turian searches frantically for some egress and Kasumi dodges dancing blades only to knock the prince over the tower rail, fear and pleading in his eyes. Kasumi strains, her muscles scream and all for not as he slips through her hand, falling to the shattered boulders below; he will be impaled upon the spires, his plates cracked and hide pierced through, and Kasumi can only watch.

Creeping from behind the mountain, the sun surges forward in the sky, blinding rays of lemon and honey striking the prince before the stone. His duel toned cry becomes a shriek, and in a blizzard of silver his plates become feathers and his arms beat a hurricane as he soars off into the sun choked heavens.

“Where’s the turian?” A guard demands, sword aimed at Kasumi’s head. Shielding herself she yells the truth; that the prince has flown away. The guard growls out in fury, but before the blow is struck, an arrow strikes him in the neck, and he tumbles like a leaden stone to join the field of rocks below.

 _Lord Vakarian is not the only wicked shot_ , Kasumi muses, and from on high, in robes of onyx with wine red hair, Lady Shepard lowers her bow. 


	9. Chapter 9

The last rays of the sinking sun fall over his face and he feels the change begin. He registers the transformation dimly, at first, still caged in the mind of a hawk. But as the feathers wilt away into silver plating and his eyes become his own once more, he realizes he’s not alone on this bed of Spruce branches.

Turning onto his opposite side, he catches in the faint glow of twilight the silhouette of one whom he holds above all else; Shepard. _His_ Shephard. His beautiful Jane. Her features are muted as the change takes her, but she’s still the most breathtaking, radiant woman Garrus has ever seen. Seized with the need to touch her, Garrus reaches out a three fingered hand. He’s still groggy, his movements slow even as his heart and mind race faster than a charging steed.

She reaches back, mouth parted, eyes frantic, and just when it seems that they will touch, fingers and claws interlaced in an imperfect union all their own… she’s gone. In her place is the beautiful, red furred wolf with eyes the color of evergreens. His loyal nighttime companion. His Shephard. His Jane. But not.

He feels more than hears his cry of anguish as she leaps out of the shallow bed dug into the snow and trots off into the luminous moonscape. As he collapses back into himself, into the body he knows, he hears the mournful cry of a wolf.


	10. Chapter 10

The forest is cold with water tumbling off the withered leaves. The trees are like corpses, clinging greedily to his cloak and anything warm with long, dead fingers made of bark.

Garrus pants, his breath coming out in a white cloud against the chilled night air. Damn Kasumi and convincing him to dance! He knows the collector doesn’t have her yet; none of the wolf pelts were red. But he can hear the buzzing laughter of the fiend in the wood, maniacal and taunting as Garrus scrambles through the darkened din, trying to gain the higher ground.

Clad in stolen garments of finery not suited for his purpose, he growls out loud, “show yourself!” His crossbow is loaded and ready, if only the rain and trees and laughter wouldn’t interrupt his archers' focus. There’s a snap of steel jaws, and laughter over the rain. No! Garrus searches the crypt black woods, eyes much sharper than any man, but vision disoriented, and thoughts as scattered as the raindrops.

He charges toward the laughter, hears the snarl of a wolf. There is a curse and a clatter and the sound of steel crushing flesh and bone. A lone wolf trots over to him, fur an auburn red, eyes as green as any emerald. “That’s my girl,” Garrus tells her softly, kneeling in the leaves. Her eyes are not her own, but in them is still burns the soul of his lady love.

They can never be together, but even so, they will never be apart.


	11. Chapter 11

He sees her loping across the fjord; a red ghost against the white. But when the ice begins to moan and crack it’s he who screams out in terror. His lady love sinks like a stone into the midnight waters, claws scrabbling for purchase against ice that continues to fissure and break.

He’s running as his talons dimple the ice, black cloak flying like a ravens’ wing as he dives down to the wolf, trying and failing to pull her ashore. “No!” He screams in both his voices. He cannot lose her! Not like this! “Save her!” He cries, voice lingering in the cold night air.

And suddenly, Kasumi is at his side. Unlike turians who fear deep water, humans take to it like fish, and Kasumi is no exception; an obsidian mermaid in the rolling pitch as she splashes in the yawning chasm of death, desperately trying to push the wolf into Garrus’s frantic embrace.

Through some marvelous feat of strength and pure determination, the small thief hoists his love ashore, and Garrus wraps her in his arms, breathing out in gasps and sobs. Her mind is locked inside a wolf, but her green eyes are relieved as she whimpers and pushes into his warm body, as she did when she was human.

Kasumi is panting, a dark and sodden thing upon the ice as Mordin rushes forward with a blanket. “Thank you,” Garrus says with all his heart. “Thank you.”

She is still a wolf with sanguine fur and claws that rend, but she is still his lady wife all the same. Hugged in black, bathed in moonlight, he’ll hold her as he did before.


	12. Chapter 12

She is often compared to dragon's fire; hot and intense in battle, red hair flying in the wind like flame. But her rage and fury are things of the cold; an insidious, creeping frost that gnaws at old wounds, numbing limbs and turning them dead and black.

Her frostbit wrath explodes out on the small thief like an arctic gale. Kasumi lost her sword? Her sword! Her family heirloom and the weapon she needs to strike the Illusive Man through his cursed, dead heart?

She has trusted Kasumi to watch over her possessions, and her love, when the pitiless moon rises, and her mind is ripped from her, sentience of no use to the wolf. And her trust has been betrayed yet again! The smaller woman has no excuse; it fell into the frozen fjord?

Lady Shepard lashes out, pushing the incompetent thief to the snow-covered ground. Kasumi cries out – an overreaction to Shepard’s aggression – but as her hood falls back, the raven-haired woman’s agony in reveled; gashed deep into her pale flesh are red ribbons of raw and mangled skin. Vicious claw marks that will scar and burn into Kasumi’s chest and shoulders.

“What happened?” Shepard whispers, her rage melted by the simmering fear of the truth.

“That happened last night.” Mordin answers instead, his face a serious mask. “While she was saving your life.”

Half-memories call to her from beyond the ivory moon; cracking of ice, water cold and deep, Garrus’s shouts and subvocal pleas and Kasumi’s hands…

“Forgive me,” Shepard mutters leaning back against her steed. She looks to Kasumi, her friend, her savior, and suddenly Mordin’s impossible plan doesn’t seem so farfetched. Garrus believes in it, so she’s been told. And she owes it to him, to her comely husband, to try this thing, to at least try.

Gently embracing Kasumi, mindful of her wounds, Shepard concedes to their idea. “Come,” she says. “I’ll show you how to cage a wolf.”


	13. Chapter 13

The colossal doors fly open as she charges, and she’s almost surprised when she storms the Cathedral keep. A glace to the wooden monoliths reveals Kasumi grinning from beneath a stolen robe. Smiling back, Shepard lowers her helmet as her eyes focus in on the Illusive Man; he’s clothed in white, a color too pure for a soul so black.

She yells, and Normandy hurtles forward, his obsidian mane twisting in the air, as her onyx armor gleams under stained glass; she is the black avenging specter here to smite the would-be holy man. But she will not so easily have her revenge. “Lady Shepard!” Kai Leng bellows in a voice heavy with brimstone. And in unblemished white and gold he charges after her on a pale horse.

Shepard is well trained, but Kai Leng is no fool; the two joust and parry as acolytes and priests move like shadows to the walls. The clash of swords and clang of metal ring a hellish echo in the house of God. Their horses shriek and Kai Leng falls but is not felled. He hurls his helmet through the prismed window, glass falling in a cutting rain.

Shepard is pulled from Normandy’s back and she kicks Kai Leng away, before slashing at him with her blade, as a dark figure cuts across the sun. No. A day without either moon or sun? Too late! She’s too late to save Garrus as bells toll and her wrath swells with them.

“My Lady!” She turns, and her family sword skitters across the ground as Kai Leng throws her to the stone. With rage renewed, she flies at the maligned Captain of the guard, an ebony wraith with gleaming silver and as her enemy gasps out his last breath she turns her fury on his keeper.

But it’s a new voice, spoken in duel vocals, blue and sweet and home, that forces her to stop and stare at the impossible; clad in his princely regalia, eyes bluer than a sacred spring, stands Lord Vakarian, her husband and her love. And as the muted sky begins to darken all the more, she stares in slack jawed awe, at the one she’s only seen in dreams.


	14. Chapter 14

_He can’t be real_ , flickers through her mind like a candles’ flame in a breeze. They can’t both exist at the same time. It’s impossible. But as she lowers her sword and crosses the space between them, hope begins to swell within her chest like a building wave.

She dares to extend her hand, braces for heartache, and is instead rewarded with the feel of solid facial plates and smooth hide beneath her trembling fingertips.

“Garrus?” She asks, tracing the cobalt colony markings across his face, the shape and pattern still so familiar.

Large, rough, three fingered hands caress her cheek and rub gently at her skin. “Jane.” He whispers in his duel toned voice that she’s only heard in dreams. She looks up to his eyes and her breath catches. Blue as a cloudless sky, open to her in all their unspoken emotions. She laughs, though the noise is choked and echoes inside the Cathedral walls.

She’s nearly forgotten how tall he stands. How sure and steadfast. Standing on tip-toes, soft human lips press against warm turian mouth plates. His slender blue tongue wraps around her own as he pulls her tightly against him, his hands still exploring, re-familiarizing himself with her waking body.

The monks and other acolytes are quiet. They are witnessing a miracle. Somewhere, Kasumi and Mordin are smiling loud enough for everyone.

She forces herself to pull from Garrus’s tight embrace. There’s one more thing to be done. Walking up to the Illusive Man she drops a well-worn leather collar at his feet. She is no longer his dog. His wolf. She was _never_ his. 

She turns her back on him, and with a confidence she has not felt in nearly two years, walks back to Garrus. Back to her home and her heart. She hears behind her a demonic rumble of muttered thunder and the words, “if I can’t have you, no man will!”

There’s a shout and a bang and the sound of an arrow hitting its mark. The Illusive Man lies dead, pierced through his blackened heart by Garrus’s crossbow.

Garrus’ eyes are wide, mouth parted as he runs to her, tossing away his weapon. She’s wrapped within his arms once more as the moon passes over the sun. She feels the warm press of daylight on her head, her clothes, her soul. 

Garrus has lifted her into the air, eyes alight in adoration as he proclaims “I love you!” To anyone and everyone who can hear. And she says it back as they twirl in daylight, together again, as they are meant be, and how they will always be. Shepard and Vakarian, until the end of time.

 

 

All artwork by the amazingly talented [@savbakk](https://savbakk.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> I published these out of order on Tumblr already. If you want to see them there, my Tumblr is @wafflesrock16. And please feel free to say hello as well =)


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